A Well-Known Secret

Starred review from September 23, 2002
Fusilli's second Terry Orr thriller, set two years after his outstanding debut, Closing Time
(2001), is even better—the writing more focused, the characters sharper, the plot less diffuse. Orr continues to struggle to accept the deaths of his wife and infant son, who were pushed under a subway train four years earlier—and to search for the elusive madman he believes killed them. A writer turned private detective, he's still protective of his precocious daughter, 14-year-old Bella, although she seems the more resilient of the two in coping with tragedy, including the September 11 catastrophe close to their lower Manhattan home. Here, Orr's housekeeper asks him to find her friend Dorotea Salgado's estranged daughter, Sonia, recently released after 30 years in prison for robbery and murder. He discovers Sonia's beaten body and a conspiracy pointing back to the 1970s. As Orr peels the layers of deception, he uncovers at the core a corrupt police family and the complicity of Sonia's three childhood friends in her downfall. Orr's unwillingness to commit hampers his nascent romance with Assistant DA Julie Giada but, with Bella's encouragement, he manages by the book's end to conquer one paralyzing fear stemming from his family tragedy. Again, Fusilli's sense of place is stunning; a tangible, poetically evoked Manhattan infuses this complex, haunting story. (Nov. 1)FYI:Fusilli is a music critic for the
Wall Street Journal.